


True North

by Ivywarrior6



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Brotherly Love, Gen, Prussia rules the subplots, World Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6037095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivywarrior6/pseuds/Ivywarrior6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first World Meeting of the year. It's England's turn to organize it and Prussia has some interesting suggestions prepared to stave of the inevitable boredom. But meetings like these can never remain uneventful for long. Germany runs afoul of a State out to steal back her title, and after some uncharacteristic behavior, America's friends are becoming increasingly concerned for his well being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True North

A small sliver of light pierced through a gap in the curtains, lancing straight into America’s eyes. He groaned and pulled the covers up over his face. His head felt like it was going to explode. He fumbled for his cellphone. He didn’t need to look to know that it was on the edge of his bedside table, in easy reaching distance, excellent, because he didn’t feel like getting up any time soon.

_“Hello?”_

“Hey England –“ A sudden violent coughing fit interrupted what he was going to say – just as well – England got the message.

_“I take it you won’t be able to make it to the meeting.”_

“Uhg, I feel awful.”

_“It’s not the elections, is it?”_

“God, I hope not.” Election season did tend to make him feel restless and wound up; how he imagined women felt around that certain time of month, but never actually ill, except… But he didn’t want to think about _that_ time. “I think it’s just an ordinary cold. It happens. I just wanted to warn you I won’t be able to make it this time.”

_“I’ll let them know. Get some rest. Oh, and America?”_

“Yeah?”

_“Eat some real food. Hamburgers aren’t really a miracle cure, you know.”_

 

England usually arrived early, especially when it was his turn to organize the World Meeting, but it just so happened that circumstances conspired to make him a bit later than normal today – he blamed France – so most of the other nations were already there when he arrived.

Japan was talking to Greece, who’d been making an effort to pay more attention to these meetings recently. Italy was with Germany, as usual, practically clinging to him, much to his brother’s irritation, though it was hard for Romano to summon the energy to care at this point. They’ve been like this for years. Lithuania was lingering in the doorway wondering what seating arrangement would be easiest on his frayed nerves. He’d been stuck between Russia and Belarus last time and he was not looking for a repeat of that living hell. The meeting before that Poland had gotten bored and started trying to play footsie with him under the table. If he sat next to America they’d probably ignore him and he might actually get some work done, but America seemed to be running late.

England was waiting until everyone else had arrived before mentioning America’s absence, but just as he was about to speak, the doors burst open.

“I thought you weren’t going to be able to make it.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“If you aren’t feeling well you should stay home and rest, America.” England chided.

“But I’m not –“

“Don’t try to tell be you’re not that sick. I heard you on the phone. You sounded awful.”

“But –“

England made wild inarticulate hand gesture of irritation, “Oh, whatever.” He said, giving up.

Lithuania took that opening to gesture that he should sit with him.

“Did you do something different with your hair?” He asked, then blushed, realizing how awkward that sounded, and stammered “It looks nice”, before shutting up and resolving not to embarrass himself further.

The other nations took their seats as well and England began the meeting. It was largely uneventful. Prussia and South Korea got into an off topic debate of the merits and risks of launching an official scientific investigation on the nature and mechanics of personification.

“Thousands of years and we still aren’t sure exactly how it works. What determines when a new personification is made?... Or when one dies?...”

“What makes you think that knowing would help us? If our governments knew how to kill us –“

“Who says they’d have to know?”

Japan thought America was being unusually quiet. This was usually when he’d interject something about creating a super-secret international organization for nation affairs like the Men in Black or SHIELD. He’d give it a cool acronym name and get all excited, before England, or more likely Germany (who despite all his strict rule following was actually deeply suspicious of world governments) would tell him exactly how badly that idea could backfire. But instead he sat quietly, just listening to the conversation and taking notes.

England suspected that America’s illness had finally caught up with him again and he’d lost his voice, so he deliberately called him out, asking for his opinion on the matter.

He started, looking up from his notes as if unsure that he was actually being addressed. England wondered whether he should be offended by that. He asked for America’s opinion on things sometimes… Well maybe not, but usually he gave him his opinion anyway regardless of how little it was wanted, and then England would shoot his suggestions down. That’s how it worked.

“Umm, I think it’s important to know as much as can, so that we can better prevent potential disasters –“

“Yes!” Prussia did a little fist pump of victory.

“But,” he continued, “Getting our governments involved could be a bad idea, especially since we don’t know if the information we might find could put us at risk. It’s a prickly problem.”

“Even if we don’t tell our bosses about it, the information could still find its way into the wrong hands.” Germany added, hiding his surprise at the serious, soft spoken response. Maybe America had decided to take these meetings more seriously. It was something a lot of countries could stand to do.

There was no final agreement to the argument, and eventually England called for a lunch break. The nations began to file out, except for England and Estonia who were trying to fix a broken projector, Germany who was gathering together this meetings notes, Italy who was waiting for Germany, and Romano who was complaining that Italy was going to make them late for lunch with Spain.

Suddenly the doors burst open revealing a young woman with long brown hair. She wore yellow flowered overalls and an expression that was psychotically, gleefully, angry.

“Who’s this potato bastard I’ve heard so much about!”

 

Last New Year’s Eve, the Italy brothers flown to the United States for a meeting. America was having a little New Year’s Party in Portland, Oregon. Usually it was New York or D.C, but this year he felt like mixing it up. And therein lies the problem, because Italy misjudged the distances on the map he was using and ordered plane tickets to Jackson, Wyoming, assuming that it couldn’t be that far of a drive, and a little road trip with his brother could be tons of fun.

Nine hours of horrible road conditions later they ended up in Boise with no hope of getting to Portland before midnight. They called America and he suggested that they stay the night at Idaho’s house and take a plane the rest of the way in the morning.

_“I’ll save you some cake.”_ He promised, _“Don’t stress it.”_

So that was how they ended up spending New Year’s Eve in front of the Boise capital building in the freezing cold with a very excitable state.

“This is so much fun. Hardly anyone comes to visit me.”

“Why is your New Year’s Ball so… misshapen?” Romano had asked, trying to appear disinterested, if only to spite his brother’s enthusiasm.

“It’s a potato.” She explained, “It’s the Idaho Potato Drop.”

“Sounds like something that potato bastard would enjoy…” He grumbled, as she slung her arms around both of their shoulders and started chanting out the countdown.

 

“Potatoes are _my_ thing. I’m the potato state.” She cried, arms wrapped around Germany like a clingy boa constrictor. “Ireland gives me enough shit about upping my potato game. I don’t need more competition.”

“Italy,” said Germany, voice low, “Tell America he needs to come collect his state.”

Italy dashed off. He could hear in the distance Germany reassuring Idaho that she was more than just her potatoes, that she had a lot of good qualities, and her brothers and sisters loved her even if she sometimes felt ignored.

 

“I haven’t seen him since the 1950’s, and then in the 90’s… I don’t know what happened. Even China lost contact.”

South Korea was sitting on a paisley print couch in a lounge adjacent to the meeting room. Prussia sat beside him. His voice held the slightly hysterical edge of someone on the brink of tears.

“I think – I think his bosses are hurting him, but I don’t – I don’t know what to do! It’s all my fault!”

He was crying in earnest now, and Prussia looked like a deer in the headlights, not knowing what to say to try to make it better.

_Is this what it was like for West?_

Bang!

Italy barreled in, tripping over his own feet like always.

“Do you know where America is?”

South Korea wiped his eyes, frantically trying to hide the fact he’d been crying and Prussia answered, “The café across the street. He and Japan are having lunch.”

He dashed off again, deciding not to pry.

 

“I don’t know where America is, Italy.” Japan said, looking troubled. “We were out for lunch with Australia and France, nothing seemed to be wrong but he was strangely quiet, like he was nervous or something, then France made a joke about the Statute of Liberty –“

Italy could guess just from Japan’s tone that the joke had been inappropriate in nature.

“– and he froze up. I don’t know what it was but he seemed really upset about something, and them he excused himself and ran off before I could ask him what was wrong.”

 

They didn’t get a chance to talk to America before the meeting started again. Germany eventually met back up with them saying that The Basque Country had dropped by to check on Spain, and she and Idaho ran off together.

“– something about a restaurant nearby that had huckleberry ice cream for a dollar.”

All through the rest of the meeting Japan kept trying to make eye contact with America, not wanting to confront him in front of everyone, but unwilling to let his friend suffer alone when there was obviously something wrong.

England gave a short presentation. He’d obviously put a lot of work into it. He had a slide show and everything. The silence in the room was almost distracting. France had other things on his mind and was neglecting his “antagonize England” duties. America wasn’t shouting out random suggestions either.

Sure, not everyone was actually _listening_ to the presentation. Romano was obviously texting under the table – recounting how Germany had been tackled by one of America’s states to Spain. Greece had fallen asleep without Japan diligently poking him to keep him on track. Who can blame him? It was a very boring presentation.

“And that’s why I’ve established a Department on the Curative Properties of Scones.”

“What?!”

Italy looked up from his notebook, where he had been doodling little cartoon pizzas, and flags, and in one corner was a picture of Germany riding a unicycle. It was a very captivating notebook.

“Just making sure you guys were still paying attention.”

“New topic!” Prussia announced, deciding it was his duty to step in before people started dying of boredom. “I’ve been doing some research on linguistics, because words are awesome, and I’ve decided we need to invent a universal language!”

“But we can speak together just fine. Are you sure it’s necessary?” China asked.

“I know _we_ can understand each other, but not everyone had the benefit of being immortal representations of human cultural identities.”

“It would save money on translator costs…” Spain pointed out.

“Ooh! Ooh!” Italy raised his hand, waving it in the air for attention. “Let’s do Latin! Nobody speaks it as their native language anymore, so we wouldn’t have to worry about playing favorites. Besides, everyone likes Latin.”

“It would still be biased toward countries that speak languages based on Latin.” China countered, “It would be harder for Eastern countries to learn.”

“Besides Latin is overly complicated. A universal language should be easy for new speakers to pick up.” England added, dragged into the discussion against his better judgement.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Hey! English is a beautiful language!”

“Being complicated just makes it more fun.” Finland defended, smiling.

“Thank you.”

“No need to worry! I already have the basis for an entirely new language! I give you…” Prussia fiddled with the projector until it displayed a slide show of his own, “The glorious language of New Prussian.”

“Now that’s just silly.”

“Austria look.” Hungary pointed to the dictionary list on the screen, laughing. “Prussia apparently means ‘awesome’.”

“Doesn’t it though?” Prussia winked. “Come on, it’s a good idea. America, back me up.”

“No. I’m not –“

“Whatever, you’re just jealous you didn’t think of it yourself.”

“I’m not – Ugh!” He stormed out leaving everyone wondering what on earth they’d just witnessed.

 

The meeting ending shortly after. Most of the countries rushed out like students at the final bell, but a couple stayed behind. England, France, Prussia, Japan, Lithuania, Italy, and Germany were gathered around in a corner of the room having a small meeting of their own.

“He’s gotta come back. He left all his papers and stuff behind.” Italy said.

“I hope it isn’t something _I_ said.” France was thinking back to lunch.

“No, he’s been acting odd all day.” Japan reassured him. “Kind of… sad.”

Lithuania disagreed. “He didn’t seem sad to me this morning, just quiet.” He remembered America smiling, taking a seat next to him before the meeting started. He’d seemed happy then. And when Japan invited him to have lunch with him his eyes had lit up with eagerness.

There was a rustle of papers and the seven of them turned around, realizing that the subject of their conversation had just entered the room and was grabbing his stuff and making to leave.

England was the first to speak. “We need to talk.”

He froze, briefcase in hand.

“I know we haven’t always had the best relationship, but if something is wrong, you know you can tell me, right? I care about you –“

“We all do.”

“– and I know it might not always feel that way, but we’re here to support you.”

He smiled and his eyes welled up with tears. Italy bounced forward to wrap him up in a big hug. (Always one for the direct approach.) There was a long silence.

“So, America, why _have_ you been so quiet.” Lithuania asked.

His smile suddenly melted away, like snow on a hot stove. Tears began to fall, and his expression was so heartbroken that he wished he could go back in time and unsay whatever he’s said to make him look so miserable. He extricated himself from Italy’s arms.

“America?!”

But he was already running.

They tried to give chase, but it’s far more difficult for seven people to navigate a hallway than one, and Italy fell, tripping England and France behind him. After some more fruitless searching it became clear that they had lost him.

“Do you think he’d pick up if I called him on his mobile?”

“Can’t hurt to try.” France answered, though England was already halfway through dialing.

The phone rang, and for a tense second it seemed like there would be no answer, but then…

_“Hello?”_ came a hoarse reply.

“America? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

_“Huh? Bro, I know you’re old, but it’s still a little early for you to be going senile.”_

“What?! America, this isn’t funny. Your friends are really worried about you.”

_“It’s just a cold, England. Take a chill pill. I missed one meeting. It’s not the end of the world.”_

“What do you mean? You were there for the meeting. I just saw you.”

…

_“Ugh, you’re a terrible brother.”_

“I’m sorry. What did I _do_.” England was getting irate.

_“That wasn’t me.”_

“But-“

_“It was Canada.”_

England swore.

_“Exactly.”_

 

A slight wind nipped at his tearstained cheeks. He felt so stupid. Of course they thought he was America. He should be used to it by now. But they just kept finding ways to get his hopes up. People wanting spend time with him, asking for his input in World Meetings, being concerned about his wellbeing, but it was all for his brother, every time. He felt a sting of bitter jealousy. America had so many people who cared about him, so many nice friends.

But Canada couldn’t fault him for that.

As the bitterness faded, he wondered if he ought to be offended for his brother’s sake as well. He wondered if it bothered America, having someone else constantly mistaken for him. After all, they didn’t know _America_ well enough notice the difference either.

_But they had noticed._ He reminded himself. _They just never considered I could be anyone else but him._

 

At an ice cream shop several blocks away, England and Lithuania continued their search. The group had split up to cover more ground. Germany and Italy heading in one direction, Prussia and France heading in another, and Japan remaining behind in case Canada returned.

“Of course I know Canada. I touch him with the narrow bit.” Idaho wiggled her fingers suggestively.

“But do you know where he is?” England asked. He didn’t have time for this.

“Haven’t seen him in ages.” She replied. “I do talk to British Columbia sometimes though, and man, he’s just the coolest.”

Exasperated England turned to leave.

“Thank you for your time.” Lithuania said, turning to follow him.

“Wait!” Idaho called, and he turned around. “Here.” She pushed an ice cream cone into his hand. “You’ll like it. It’s huckleberry.”

 

France felt horrible. He usually had a pretty good track record for telling the twins apart. In retrospect it seemed so obvious.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Prussia reassured, seeing the look of guilt. “He’ll forgive you.”

_He always does._

 

There was a knock on the door, soft enough that for a second America thought maybe it was a wind tapping a tree branch against a window, but then there was the click of a key in a lock and the creak of a door being opened, and he knew exactly who it was.

His brother stood in the doorway. His eyes were still a bit red from crying. He took a deep breath as if to speak, but then released it, a shaky sigh.

America pulled himself up off the couch he’d been cocooned on since midday, his stomach turning in protest against the movement, and wrapped Canada up in a big hug. There was no need for words.

“You’re all germy.” Canada teased. And he laughed, tears beginning to well up again. “How about I make you some soup.”

 

There wasn’t another World Meeting for nearly a month, enough time for America to make a full recovery, and Canada to finally stop screening his calls. It had been England first, then France when he reached nothing but voicemail. Italy tried calling later that day, also getting no response. Germany tried the wiser path of attaching his apology to an email of that meetings minutes. Even Romano had sent a text, not directly about the incident but with the implicit invitation to commiserate sometime, maybe over dinner.

England was waiting just outside the doorway of the building this month’s meeting was being held in. He tried to look casual, but he was obviously scanning the faces of the people as they walked by, looking for certain someone.

“Good morning, Canada.”

“It’s America.” He grinned knowingly.

“You know, I thought so, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.”


End file.
